Category: Uncategorized

This project at the corner of San Bruno Avenue and Glenview Drive (across from Lunardi’s) was updated in May 2024 to include 58 townhome-style condominium units. Of these, 6 homes will have ADA floor plans, 49 homes will be offered at market rate, 3 homes for low-income families, and 6 for moderate income families. This project will also include installing a new four-way stop sign at the intersection of San Bruno Avenue and Glenview Drive.

Project Webpage

The sale of the high school property is pending from San Mateo Union High School District to Summerhill Homes, and is expected to close in January 2025. This project will include 156 Single Family detached 2-story homes and includes the dedication of land for playing fields for our community.

Project Webpage

This site was agreed to be sold by San Bruno Park School District to Pulte Homes in 2018. The project envisions. 118 single family homes and common open spaces across the 21-acre site. The sale in still in escrow and the plans are under review.

Project Webpage

This project next to Jack’s Restaurant near 380 will be the permanent home for the Hyundai/Genesis auto dealership currently in temporary space at the former Sears at Tanforan. The sale was finalized in July 2024 and construction is expected to commence later this year.

Project Webpage

We finalized and adopted the Bayhill Specific Plan to allow for YouTube’s planned expansion of their global headquarters. This development will bring $54 million in community benefits to San Bruno.

Project Webpage

When we learned that the Tanforan Mall was going to be put up for sale, we took immediate action to compile a fact sheet entitled Reimagining Tanforan and distributed it nationally…letting potential developers know what we as a community were looking for on that site. This led to the purchase of the property by Alexandria (who built Mission Bay in San Francisco along with many other developments in the Bay Area and across the U.S.) who plans on developing a mixed-use community combining commercial, retail (including a new Target and refreshed Century Theaters) and over 1,000 units of needed housing that is almost perfectly aligned with our initial vision. This is a prime example of us making our own destiny.

Project Webpage

Another key development is not actually located in San Bruno but will impact us: the Southline development in South San Francisco east of the San Bruno BART station. The plan will extend Sneath Lane directly to the project and the original proposal had the developer paying for the new intersection and that’s it. We recognized immediately that this project would result in South City getting all of the tax revenue while San Bruno would get all of the traffic, so we successfully negotiated $10 million in community benefits to be used for infrastructure and other improvements in the area.

Project Webpage

This project on the Former Melody Toyota site will have 134 units, all of them affordable, with 25 parking spaces. This project is being built under new state laws that allow projects like this to be built without approval from the local Planning Commission nor City Council; if the project meets objective building standards it goes up. While I applaud the addition of needed housing I am worried about what impact having limited parking will have on the surrounding neighborhood and will be watching closely as the project is completed.

Project Webpage

Like the project at 732-740 El Camino, this project on the site of the former AT&T building on San Bruno Avenue west of El Camino is being built under new state laws that make projects with 100% affordable housing exempt from approval from our Planning Commission and City Council. This development will include 341 affordable units with 109 parking spaces.

Project Webpage

The Mills Park project which was approved by the City Council in 2020 remains entitled and ready for permits; the developer asked for and was granted an extension of the development agreement in 2022.

Project Webpage

We cannot ignore that we desperately need housing here in the Bay Area, and every city including San Bruno must do its part to add units and address the problem. I do believe that it is possible to encourage development that adds units while minimizing the impact on our existing neighborhoods. While on the Planning Commission, I advocated for a reduction in scope for the Mills Park development to address congestion issues for the surrounding neighborhood, and our Commission sent a unanimous resolution to City Council to ask them to work with the developer to achieve this. Unfortunately this proposal was rejected, and this contributed to the (temporary) death of the entire project. The project came back in June 2020 with a reduction in scope…specifically the removal of the Whole Foods store which reduced traffic impact on the surrounding neighborhood by 70%, and with over $5 million in additional guaranteed benefits to the City compared to the original plan that failed. This plan was approved unanimously by City Council.

I feel for our neighbors in Mills Park who live near this project and who will need to live through the construction and its aftermath, and if elected I will join my council colleagues in insisting that the developer take every reasonable step possible to reduce disruption in the neighborhood as construction proceeds.

It’s important to understand that I support smart development, and that I’m not a “build it, just not next to me” person. To illustrate, the Crestmoor High School site will be up for discussion soon with a proposal to build hundreds of homes. Because I live nearby, I will be recused from voting on anything related to that project in my current position as Planning Commissioner or if I’m lucky enough to be elected to council. My family and my neighbors will see a substantial increase in traffic when those homes go in. But I will still speak out, as a resident, in support of responsible development at the Crestmoor site, because we need housing. My only caveat will be to insist that the new property owner save the sports fields for our kids.

Measure G. I supported Measure G, the half-cent Sales Tax that voters approved in 2019. The measure allowed the funds to be used for General Fund purposes, but be tracked separately and subject to oversight by an appointed committee of citizens.

The $8.3 million budget deficit cannot be ignored, and it’s tempting to apply all of the Measure G funds against the deficit. But we also cannot ignore that the Measure G campaign was sold to us as a means of funding desperately needed street repairs that have been repeatedly deferred for many years.

I advocate for a balanced approach, where we spend 50% of Measure G funds on street repairs and 50% to address the budget deficit, then reassess as our financial situation changes.

Regarding the oversight committee, unfortunately the committee selected does not adequately represent the diversity of San Bruno. If elected I will work with council colleagues to address the makeup of this committee to ensure everyone in San Bruno is represented.

Charter City and District Elections. San Bruno currently operates under General Law, meaning that we have not adopted our own municipal charter and instead default to the general laws of the State of California. These general laws specify that a city of our size must utilize District Elections wherein we would divide the city into a number of districts, with each represented by a City Council member who resides in that district and is elected by the voters in that district. A group of lawyers is currently moving up and down the state to force cities like ours to move to district elections or face lawsuits, and San Bruno appears to be next on their list.

The overall concept of district elections sounds reasonable, but I have specific reservations about moving to this model in San Bruno at this time. To start, when I think of areas of the city like Downtown, I wouldn’t want responsibility to fall on only one councilmember…I want all of our councilmembers to be responsible and held accountable for our Downtown. Second, we currently do not have many residents choosing to run for office from across the various areas of San Bruno. I fear that if we move to district elections, there’s a real possibility of no one stepping up to run for a particular district or for candidates to run unopposed. A lack of candidates would also invite outside interests to recruit and fund a campaign for a local resident in order to influence our council. In a large city like San Francisco district elections make sense, but I don’t believe the situation in San Bruno is appropriate for us to move to District Elections at this time.

One way to avoid being forced into district elections would be to become a Charter City. We can write and adopt our own municipal charter and then decide on our own when it will be appropriate to move to district elections.

There are other benefits to becoming a charter city. The city would have the power to enact a transfer fee on real estate sales, a tactic other charter cities in California have used to substantially increase revenue. Such a transfer fee could be set up however we wish; it could apply to commercial and not residential property, it could be set at different amounts for each…whatever we decide, with voter approval, to write into our charter. Over the past several years California state law has steadily eroded our ability to use local tax dollars for local needs, which we could mitigate by having our own municipal charter. We would have increased autonomy over land use decisions and more control over traffic regulations, among other benefits.

There are currently 121 cities in California, including several in the Bay Area, who have moved to the charter city model, and I advocate for exploring this option for San Bruno as soon as possible. This would involve drafting the municipal charter, which the voters must approve before it could be enacted.

In 2021, I along with then-Vice Mayor Marty Medina formed the Downtown Improvement Ad Hoc Committee, tasked with finding ways the City could act to help struggling businesses in our downtown corridor. We met with city staff to plan the design for a new downtown plaza on the mostly-vacant and unusable Centennial Plaza, with the vision of creating needed space for community events, farmer’s markets, small performances and more. With a generous grant from the San Bruno Community Foundation, council approved the preliminary plan in 2022 and after a long period of relentless advocacy the plaza was approved for construction earlier this year and is slated to open by the end of 2024.

In addition, staff is actively working on improvements to Posy Park (adjacent to the Caltrain station) and is soliciting bids to renovate Florida Park.

The second initiative focused specifically on downtown is for beautification efforts, including greening, banners, and marquee sign and is currently underway. This includes finally revitalizing the planters along San Mateo Avenue, replanting street trees on Jenevein and the southern end of Downtown, the design and production of new custom themed City street pole banners for various times of the year, and replacing the marquee sign at the southern end of San Mateo Avenue with a scrolling digital LED board.

Another key recent change in our downtown was the introduction of paid parking. Our 2019 parking study revealed what we already knew; despite business struggling with fewer customers than desired, there never seemed to be any available parking in our downtown. Recent court decisions removed our ability to chalk tires to enforce our two-hour parking meters, so we needed to find a way to fund more expensive license-plate-reader technology and dedicated staff to do enforcement. The parking meter program was designed to discourage all-day street parking by nearby employees and residents and to encourage use of the eight city-owned parking lots that ring our downtown, with the proceeds from the meters funding our parking contractor LAZ to do enforcement not only in our Downtown but citywide.

The program has certainly had its hiccups as it has been introduced and we are working with staff to address needs like shorter-term options in the lots and introducing more free 20-minute green zones, but we have achieved the goal of 80% parking utilization on downtown streets and increased use of the cheaper city-owned lots. While some businesses are not in favor of these changes others are seeing boosts in their business from patrons who were previously unable to find any parking on the Avenue. I am committed to continue working with staff to improve the program and to ensure that any excess funds from the program be used for downtown improvement programs like the two mentioned above.

Since 2020 I have advocated for and seen our code enforcement department make substantial improvements, with a special focus on our downtown corridor. These efforts have resulted in fewer shabby storefronts and buildings taking more pride in their property and in our community.

Lastly, in my 2020 vision I advocated for a vacancy tax once we emerged from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. While its debatable that we’ve actually emerged (it sure doesn’t feel like it) I’ve studied this concept as enacted in other cities to see if this would be an effective tool to encourage vacant downtown buildings to be sold or rented. It turns out that a vacancy tax would need to go before the voters and would not generate much revenue once enacted; in fact it would take several years to even recoup the cost of putting a measure on the ballot. In addition cities with such taxes find them very problematic to defend legally, so for all of these reasons I believe this is not something we should be focusing on right now.

The good news is that we have fewer than 10 vacancies out of 132 businesses in our downtown.

In 2019, the Planning Commission recommended, and the City Council approved, a new Streetscape program for downtown. The result was a plan to revitalize the streets, sidewalks, lighting and public fixtures along San Mateo Avenue to make the area more attractive for customers and for new businesses. This plan was necessary for us to understand exactly what we want and how much it will cost, which will enable the City to pursue grants or other forms of funding to start making changes.

Since the Streetscape Plan boundaries extend only to the public right-of-way (streets and sidewalks), we must also have a parallel effort to address the condition of some of the buildings on San Mateo Avenue. While there has been continued overall improvement to the building facades as new businesses have been opening along San Mateo Avenue, many buildings remain in various states of disrepair. Some of these buildings have been in this condition for quite some time and are evidence that the code enforcement measures currently available to the City are not adequate. I have a plan to address this:

1Establish a special enforcement zone along San Mateo Avenue, extending from El Camino Real to the Caltrain undercrossing. The enforcement zone would apply to commercial buildings with frontages along San Mateo Avenue. Establishing this zone would allow the city to enact specific ordinances applicable only to the San Mateo Avenue corridor and not affect other businesses elsewhere in San Bruno.

2Enact an ordinance establishing minimum upkeep standards for buildings in the special enforcement zone that would require building owners to maintain clean storefronts and replace broken fixtures, awnings and signage. Staff study and planning commission discussion would be required to establish exact standards for compliance. Our code enforcement department could first issue 30- or 90-day warnings to building owners who are out of compliance, and then if the issues are not addressed the City would impose recurring fines until the issues are addressed. Any fines collected could be maintained in a special fund used only to supplement existing maintenance and upkeep for the public right-of-way along San Mateo Avenue.

3To soften the impact of #2, the City could also enact a second ordinance establishing permit fee subsidies and expedited approval process for businesses in the special enforcement zone who apply for permits for new signage, replacement of awnings, and other items related to building exteriors which require City approval. This second ordinance could also help entice additional new businesses to open along San Mateo Avenue.

4Once the economy improves, the City could enact a third ordinance establishing a vacancy tax on building owners whose businesses remain vacant for an extended period. There are buildings along San Mateo Avenue which are in extreme disrepair that are being held as investment properties by owners who have no intention of leasing them out. It would not be appropriate to enact such an ordinance during the current economic climate, and any such an ordinance should include a provision for the council to temporarily suspend the vacancy tax in the event of another economic downturn.

These changes would have zero effect on the majority of existing businesses along San Mateo Avenue, whose proprietors routinely maintain their building facades in order to attract customers and grow their businesses.

While enacting the entire Streetscape plan will be costly and is currently out of reach, we can’t just sit back and do nothing. There are several lower-cost improvements we can start making now, like removing the large planters and planting native shade trees directly in the ground, improving signage and replacing fixtures like garbage cans and benches.

San Bruno is one of the last communities in the country to maintain their own cable TV and internet provider services. There are definite advantages to not dealing with a large corporation and the council has advocated for keeping it and focusing on providing new services like fiber. However it’s hard to ignore that the services provided currently by San Bruno CityNet Services are inadequate when compared to services provided in neighboring communities. If we are to keep this service, we must be creative in finding adequate funding to make upgrades. First, we must immediately end the practice of diverting profits from CityNet into the General Fund to balance the budget instead of reinvesting in CityNet to improve services and stay more current. We should explore selling the Citynet office site on El Camino (the City might get $5M to $7M for that property based on recent sales) and moving those services to City Hall, then use the proceeds to start the fiber project and make other changes to improve the service experience for our residents.

I am in favor of allowing cannabis dispensaries to operate in San Bruno, subject to strict oversight regarding where they may operate within our City. I spoke on this topic at the City Council Meeting on June 9, 2020 (clip below).

“We have an $8 million budget shortfall that we’ll be dealing with for years to come, and an opportunity to attract a recession-proof, heavily regulated business to our city, an opportunity that won’t come up again for two more years. Now is exactly the time to move forward with a ballot measure.

“If you’re against cannabis, vote no on the ballot measure. And if it does pass, then don’t patronize the dispensary. I don’t plan to…I don’t use cannabis, but I do see the benefit it brings to several of my neighbors in San Bruno who suffer from chronic illness. I also see the massive economic benefit it will bring and that our City desperately needs.”

Currently San Bruno residents drive to other cities to legally purchase cannabis and leave their tax dollars in those cities, and residents from cities to our south drive right by San Bruno to drive to San Francisco or Pacifica to spend tax dollars that we could get right here in San Bruno.